Author Topic: what I have learned today. (Read 858972 times)

ElyDave · « **Reply #1050 on:** 22 May, 2016, 06:39:08 pm »

so does lashings of double cream, nuts and sunflower seeds, topped with home made berry compote

On the other hand, my personal learning over the last three days - a rear mech is not just a rear mech, at least not past 10sp. Gone are the days of cross compatibility. Lots of swearing ensued

rafletcher · « **Reply #1051 on:** 23 May, 2016, 10:08:50 am »

That UK Power Networks have my mobile number. Because I got a text 10 minutes after the start of a power cut telling me there was a local problem, and offering text updates if I replied in the affirmative. I did, and I got them. I was quite impressed.

rogerzilla · « **Reply #1052 on:** 24 May, 2016, 07:41:31 pm »

Jane from Rod, Jane and Freddy used to be married to Rod but is now with Freddy.

fuzzy · « **Reply #1053 on:** 25 May, 2016, 08:32:21 am »

Quote from: rogerzilla on 24 May, 2016, 07:41:31 pm

Jane from Rod, Jane and Freddy used to be married to Rod but is now with Freddy.

Is that the recent celebrity threesome injunction ménage e tois?

Guy · « **Reply #1054 on:** 25 May, 2016, 02:42:46 pm »

Quote from: fuzzy (retd.) AAGE on 25 May, 2016, 08:32:21 am

Quote from: rogerzilla on 24 May, 2016, 07:41:31 pm
Jane from Rod, Jane and Freddy used to be married to Rod but is now with Freddy.

Is that the recent celebrity threesome injunction ménage e tois?

Nah. That was Bungle, George and Zippy

ian · « **Reply #1055 on:** 25 May, 2016, 02:52:50 pm »

Didn't there used to be an unpopular beat combo called Bungle's Furry Knob?

Mr Larrington · « **Reply #1056 on:** 25 May, 2016, 04:24:45 pm »

Cider-fuelled idiot beat combo Metal Duck did a song called Rod, Jane And Freddy's Total Noise Annihilation.

Chris S · « **Reply #1057 on:** 25 May, 2016, 06:20:53 pm »

What I have learned today: Don't eat anything fboab's chopped on a chopping board, but definitely get her to do any grating

.

Mrs Pingu · « **Reply #1058 on:** 25 May, 2016, 07:27:40 pm »

Quote from: Chris S on 25 May, 2016, 06:20:53 pm

What I have learned today: Don't eat anything fboab's chopped on a chopping board, but definitely get her to do any grating .

You making pink macaroni cheese?

Legs · « **Reply #1059 on:** 25 May, 2016, 07:35:17 pm »

Roy Wood's given name is Ulysses Adrian Wood. Too cool.

orraloon · « **Reply #1060 on:** 25 May, 2016, 08:38:54 pm »

Quote from: Legs on 25 May, 2016, 07:35:17 pm

Roy Wood's given name is Ulysses Adrian Wood. Too cool.

Erm, too cool to be true. (Urban) myth alert. You might want to check his Wikipedia page.

Legs · « **Reply #1061 on:** 26 May, 2016, 09:33:24 am »

Everything I know is wrong.

Bledlow · « **Reply #1062 on:** 26 May, 2016, 11:57:24 am »

That the father of the actress Miranda Hart was the last man off HMS Coventry when it was sunk by the Fuerza Aérea Argentina in 1982 - by choice.

Guy · « **Reply #1063 on:** 26 May, 2016, 02:31:57 pm »

My Granddad joined the Royal Field Artillery in Feb 1914 and was discharged in Sep 1920. I knew he was a "front-line gunner" but I didn't know the dates.

(no, I'm not busy this afternoon)

David Martin · « **Reply #1064 on:** 26 May, 2016, 10:49:39 pm »

Quote from: Guy on 26 May, 2016, 02:31:57 pm

My Granddad joined the Royal Field Artillery in Feb 1914 and was discharged in Sep 1920. I knew he was a "front-line gunner" but I didn't know the dates.

(no, I'm not busy this afternoon)

Surely discharged must be the wrong word for a fusilier? A bit like 'fired'

Andrij · « **Reply #1065 on:** 26 May, 2016, 11:12:45 pm »

Quote from: David Martin on 26 May, 2016, 10:49:39 pm

Quote from: Guy on 26 May, 2016, 02:31:57 pm
My Granddad joined the Royal Field Artillery in Feb 1914 and was discharged in Sep 1920. I knew he was a "front-line gunner" but I didn't know the dates.

(no, I'm not busy this afternoon)

Surely discharged must be the wrong word for a fusilier? A bit like 'fired'

Did they have difficulty replacing him with someone of similar calibre?

ElyDave · « **Reply #1066 on:** 27 May, 2016, 08:40:26 am »

Quote from: Andrij on 26 May, 2016, 11:12:45 pm

Quote from: David Martin on 26 May, 2016, 10:49:39 pm
Quote from: Guy on 26 May, 2016, 02:31:57 pm
My Granddad joined the Royal Field Artillery in Feb 1914 and was discharged in Sep 1920. I knew he was a "front-line gunner" but I didn't know the dates.

(no, I'm not busy this afternoon)

Surely discharged must be the wrong word for a fusilier? A bit like 'fired'

Did they have difficulty replacing him with someone of similar calibre?

This is like shooting fish in a barrel

Torslanda · « **Reply #1067 on:** 28 May, 2016, 01:17:44 am »

Quote from: Guy on 26 May, 2016, 02:31:57 pm

My Granddad joined the Royal Field Artillery in Feb 1914 and was discharged in Sep 1920. I knew he was a "front-line gunner" but I didn't know the dates.

(no, I'm not busy this afternoon)

Coinkidink. So was mine. Heavy artillery at the Somme, they had a direct hit (or a premature detonation) and a burial party came around to fill in the crater. Someone threw a shovel of earth on him and he groaned. If he hadn't I wouldn't be here.

Kim · « **Reply #1068 on:** 28 May, 2016, 01:22:37 am »

How the sun moves round the sky, particularly with regard to seasons and different latitudes (and indeed hemispheres).

I've understood the principles since I was a kid, but you don't really get a proper feel for these things until you build one yourself.

T42 · « **Reply #1069 on:** 28 May, 2016, 10:46:13 am »

^^^ The first graphics progs I wrote in C were orreries, on a 256-color VGA screen. Even did a 3D one. Trouble was that the screen's vertical res was only around 2/3 of the horizontal so everything was egg-shaped unless corrected.

Bledlow · « **Reply #1070 on:** 31 May, 2016, 08:02:27 pm »

That Herr von Trapp in The Sound of Music was a submarine commander for the Austro-Hungarian navy in WW1, sinking the French armoured cruiser Leon Gambetta with the loss of 648 of her 785 crew, & his first wife was a granddaughter & heiress of Robert Whitehead, an Englishman who invented & built the first effective self-propelled naval torpedoes (including the type used by von Trapp) in Fiume (now Rijeka) in what was then Austria but now Croatia, for the Austro-Hungarian navy.

I'd heard of Whitehead, largely because his works in Fiume became Italian after WW1, & the business still exists in Italy (Whitehead Sistemi Subacquei, subsumed into a division of Finmeccanica-Leonardo last year) & still builds torpedoes, used by the Italian & many other navies. I had no idea of the Whitehead-von Trapp connection, or that von Trapp had been a submarine commander.

Tim Hall · « **Reply #1071 on:** 01 June, 2016, 12:21:57 am »

Whitehead is buried in Worth churchyard, a couple of miles from where I am right now. He owned what was then called Paddockhurst and is now Worth Abbey.

ian · « **Reply #1072 on:** 01 June, 2016, 02:51:14 am »

That eating an industrial-sized portion of chickpea and lentil curry on the eve of a long-haul flight is about as good an idea as it sounds.

Bledlow · « **Reply #1073 on:** 01 June, 2016, 01:37:20 pm »

That there are black USAians who having lived here for a while, say such things as "I forgot I was black" when they go home, because they find that far less attention is paid to ancestral continent here than over there.

Things commented on include that the police respond to them better here, & that they don't feel out of place when there are no or very few other black people around, because non-black people aren't reacting differently to them than the others present.

Oh, & black American women say that they find they have more choice of men here. One suggested it might be because the US stereotype of the angry black single mother doesn't exist here, so really just another aspect of the same thing.

"Weren’t tense and hostile the way that some American police officers are when I approach" - black US former airman.
"I don’t remember being followed around by store security"

T42 · « **Reply #1074 on:** 01 June, 2016, 01:41:45 pm »

Quote from: ian on 01 June, 2016, 02:51:14 am

That eating an industrial-sized portion of chickpea and lentil curry on the eve of a long-haul flight is about as good an idea as it sounds.

In James Dickey's book "To the White Sea" he mentions the USN's habit of feeding its aviators on beans before flights in unpressurized planes; and unconventional uses for the flare chute.

My own alimentary mishap, never to be forgotten, involved lobster mayonnaise with a pint of Guinness and a very rough crossing of the Irish Sea.